Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Findings from a new national poll show support for impeachment, growing opposition to war on terrorism.

Reporting from an ongoing survey of public knowledge and opinion, Berkeley based NGO Retro Poll released startling results suggesting that 39% of Americans favor impeachment of President Bush. The poll, taken between April 19 and May 5 asked whether people believe that misleading Congress and the Public on weapons of mass destruction to take the country to war is grounds to impeach the President (39% said yes, 40% said no). On whether the U.S. should have invaded Iraq the poll results are consistent with findings of Gallup and other major polls (48% said yes).

Other surprising findings were that almost half of respondents (46%) favor an independent investigation of the U.S. role in the overthrow of Haiti’s democratically elected president, Juan Bertrand Aristide, and 57% favor a national moratorium on the death penalty because of the procedural problems that have put many innocent people on death row (112 released so far). Four out of five Americans also repudiate the use of torture.

As in earlier Retro Polls most support for the war in Iraq and the War on Terrorism was found among people who still think that Saddam Hussein worked with Al Qaeda (though no evidence has been published) and among the 32% of people who believe the War on Terrorism is preventing terrorism. However, 24% of Americans believe that the War on Terrorism is actually creating terrorists. In addition, 56 % of people who gave an opinion say the War on Terrorism is removing important democratic rights in the US and large percentages (50-80%) oppose various intrusive provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.

The poll reached 513 random Americans and has a “margin of error” of +/- 3.5% Full results are available at www.retropoll.org.